![[ Screenshot: Default Directory View ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/directories/directory.gif "Says what it is, is what it says..")
Beautify your default directory listings! Displaying index-less file views is a great way to share files, but the drab, bare-bones interface is difficult to integrate into existing designs. While there are many scripts available to customize the appearance and functionality of default directory navigation, most of these methods are either too complicated, too invasive, or otherwise insufficient for expedient directory styling. In this comprehensive tutorial, you will learn how to use the built-in functionality of Apache’s mod_autoindex module to style […] Continue reading »
![[ Robin Leach of 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous' ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/css-implement/lifestyles.jpg "Somehow, 'happy' just doesn't say it..")
A great way to improve your CSS skills is to check out the stylesheets used by other websites. Digging behind the scenes and exploring some applied CSS provides new ideas and insights about everything from specificity and formatting to hacks and shortcuts. Learning CSS by reading about ideal cases and theoretical applications is certainly important, but actually seeing how the language is applied in “real-world” scenarios provides first-hand knowledge and insight. While there are millions of standards-based, CSS-designed websites to […] Continue reading »
![[ Photo: Television Flashback ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/blacklisted/2008-10-19.jpg "A young Bob Barker points at you..")
Welcome to the Perishable Press “Blacklist Candidate” series. In this post, we continue our new tradition of exposing, humiliating and banishing spammers, crackers and other worthless scumbags.. From time to time on the show, a contestant places a bid that is so absurd and so asinine that you literally laugh out loud, point at the monitor, and openly ridicule the pathetic loser. On such occasions, even the host of the show will laugh and mock the idiocy. Of course, this […] Continue reading »
![[ CSS3 ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/misc-chunks/css-logo.jpg)
CSS is very powerful. In this tutorial, we look at how to clean up styles on hyperlinks containing images (e.g., JPG, PNG, GIF) using pure CSS techniques. As well as some related tips and tricks to help you get linked images displaying exactly as intended. Continue reading »
As announced at IE Death March, I recently dropped support for Internet Explorer 6. As newer versions of Firefox, Opera, and Safari (and others) continue to improve consistency and provide better support for standards-based techniques, having to carry IE 6 along for the ride — for any reason — is painful. Thanks to the techniques described in this article, I am free to completely ignore (figuratively and literally) IE 6 when developing and designing websites. Continue reading »
The “CSS Hackz Series” focuses on useful hacks, tricks, and workarounds for specific presentational and styling issues on various browsers. Although a majority of these articles provide solutions for Internet Explorer, other browsers are covered as well, either specifically or in general. The articles in the “Hackz” series are written to be as clear and concise as possible, focusing on application rather than theory. Thus, these posts cut right to the chase, presenting comprehensive methods and techniques aimed at those […] Continue reading »
Recently, I have been getting a lot of requests for multiple-loop configurations in WordPress. It seems that multiple-column, multiple-loop configurations are in high demand these days, especially ones that display posts like this: First column, first loop: display posts #1-5 Second column, second loop: display posts #6-10 Third column, third loop: display posts #11-15 Using WordPress and a little CSS, this configuration is relatively easy to accomplish. Let’s cut right to the chase.. Continue reading »
More and more these days, we are all finding WordPress being used as a content management system. It shouldn’t be too tough to see why — highly customizable, a community growing in size and knowledge, and a plethora of options in the way of plugins and simple yet highly effective PHP edits. Thanks to these, you have access to an open source script that allows you to show what you want, when you want, where you want, and how you […] Continue reading »
In my previous article on redirecting 404 requests for favicon files, I presented an HTAccess technique for redirecting all requests for nonexistent favicon.ico files to the actual file located in the site’s web-accessible root directory: # REDIRECT FAVICONZ <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} favicon.ico [NC] RewriteRule (.*) http://domain.tld/favicon.ico [R=301,L] </ifmodule> As discussed in the article, this code is already in effect here at Perishable Press, as may be seen by clicking on any of the following links: Update: I’ve removed the […] Continue reading »
For the last several months, I have been seeing an increasing number of 404 errors requesting “favicon.ico” appended onto various URLs: http://example.com/favicon.ico http://example.com/2007/06/12/favicon.ico http://example.com/2007/09/25/absolute-horizontal-and-vertical-centering-via-css/favicon.ico http://example.com/2007/08/01/temporary-site-redirect-for-visitors-during-site-updates/favicon.ico http://example.com/2007/01/16/maximum-and-minimum-height-and-width-in-internet-explorer/favicon.ico When these errors first began appearing in the logs several months ago, I didn’t think too much of it — “just another idiot who can’t find my site’s favicon..” As time went on, however, the frequency and variety of these misdirected requests continued to increase. A bit frustrating perhaps, but not serious enough to […] Continue reading »
![[ Diagram: Default WordPress Post Display Order ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/horiz-order/horizontal-order_default.gif)
Most WordPress-powered blogs display posts in sequential order within a single column. Like this, for example: Continue reading »
![[ Best Title Separator ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/misc-chunks/best-title-separator.jpg)
While writing my previous article on creating the perfect WordPress title tags, I deliberately avoided discussing the use of separators in titles. I feel that the topic is worthy of its own article, enabling a more thorough exploration of the details. Title separators are the symbols, punctuation, and other characters used to distinguish between various parts of the page title. For example, a title may include the blog name, post title and blog description, with each element separated by a […] Continue reading »
For those of you running an older version of WordPress that is generating errors that look like any of these fabricated examples: Continue reading »
In an effort to organize my pile of offline notes, I will be posting a number of quick, “to-the-point” tutorials on a number of useful topics. In this post, I share an excellent method for auto-clearing and restoring multiple form field inputs using a bit of unobtrusive JavaScript. This method was discovered at xy.wz.cz. There are two steps to this technique, which should take no longer than five minutes to implement. Continue reading »
![[ Perfect Title Tags ]](https://perishablepress.com/wp/wp-content/images/2008/misc-chunks/wp-title-deco.jpg)
Keeping an eye on all things WordPress, I have noticed an ongoing fascination with configuring the ultimate WordPress <title></title> tags. Many bloggers use various plugins to generate differently configured <title></title> tags depending on particular page views. A good example of this is seen in the All in One SEO Pack, which, among many other things, enables users to specify custom titles for several different types of pages. While there is nothing wrong with this approach, some of us prefer to […] Continue reading »
This was just too juicy to pass up. Blogstorm recently blogged about an easy JavaScript technique for making any website editable. After checking it out for myself, I just had to share it here at Perishable Press. Here it is: javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0 Paste that single line of code into the address bar of any modern browser and have fun editing the page. Obviously, any changes will only apply to the page as seen in your browser, not the […] Continue reading »
Perishable Press is operated by Jeff Starr, a professional web developer and book author with two decades of experience.
Here you will find posts about web development, WordPress, security, and 